Then Shen Bing received a letter from Ying Zheng, saying that he wanted to replace the people of the country and move back to the north.
Ying Zheng and Shen Bing went there together, and Shen Bing's eyes were always fixed on the people of Dai Guo, the original Hetao area.
These people were originally the people Li Mu moved to the North from the State of Zhao...
The difficulties Li Mu faced when he was stationed in the north were very similar to Shen Bing's situation at that time. Li Mu's solution was to move the people north.
At that time, the people of Zhao State were also unhappy, but Li Mu promised to reduce taxes and grant land, and then hundreds of thousands of people moved there.
Therefore, the concept of "border farming" did not actually originate from the Han Dynasty.
The Han Dynasty institutionalized and widely used "border farming" as a "tactic of war".
As early as the Qin Dynasty, there were records of people being relocated artificially to support the army.
Although relocating people is different from "border farming", the essence is the same, which is to increase the population to solve the self-sufficiency problem of border troops.
Everything Shen Bing did in Beidi at this time can be said to be preparing for the return of the people of Daiguo to Hetao.
It's just that Ying Zheng's consent is required to relocate the people, otherwise Shen Bing would not dare to act rashly.
Now that Ying Zheng had given him an explanation, Shen Bing's worries were half relieved.
Things were not going well for Dai at this time.
The state of Dai relied on the state of Yan to unite for warmth in the hope of not being destroyed by the state of Qin.
But even the State of Yan was defeated by the State of Qin, and King Xi of Yan was so frightened that he killed his own son, Prince Dan, and offered his head for peace.
After that, he sent grain to Qin again and again, which made the people of Yan angry and resentful.
Can such a Yan State be trusted?
The answer is obviously no.
If the state of Yan is unreliable, can the state of Dai be relied on?
Especially after the Chu State was destroyed, everyone was thinking:
Even a country as powerful as Chu could not escape the fate of being destroyed, let alone Yan and Dai.
As a result, the people of Dai State were in panic, and many of them regretted that they had followed Zhao Wangjia and fled here to live in peace.
They even believed that they were deceived by King Zhao.
The reason why I say this is because Zhao Wangjia wanted the people to move with him and threatened the people that the Qin army would massacre the city and kill them as soon as they arrived.
In the era of poor information and the feud between Zhao and Qin, there was a precedent of Bai Qi killing hundreds of thousands of troops, so the people were so frightened that they could only drag their families and move to Dai with Zhao Wangjia.
Therefore, it may be more appropriate to replace "move" with "escape".
However, as time goes by, people gradually know the truth:
"The Qin army occupied Handan but did not massacre the city. How could they occupy the northern region and massacre the city?"
"Are we being deceived by Zhao Wangjia? In fact, there was no massacre of the city?"
"It is said that those princes who had insulted the King of Qin have never been held accountable. Do you know whether this is true or not?"
"Of course it's true. Those princes are imprisoned in the military camp in Handan, and they live in high-rise buildings with good food and drink. No one in Handan knows it."
…
At this moment, they heard two more pieces of news:
One is that the Qin army gathered and protected the Zhao people in Yunzhong County, and used 10,000 troops to repel the Xiongnu army of more than 100,000 people, killing Xiongnu corpses everywhere...
The real situation is of course not that the Xiongnu army of more than 100,000 people was repelled, but the people always exaggerated according to word of mouth: originally, they repelled more than 10,000 Xiongnu troops, but after talking about it, it became 30,000, and after passing on a few more people, it became 10,000. More than ten thousand.
Another news is that the Qin army will attack Dai on the day of the harvest.
This made the people of Dai almost cry.
Then suddenly one day, pieces of paper appeared out of nowhere. On the paper, there were drawings of the grasslands and the Yellow River in the North, as well as simple drawings of the Huns being driven away and the people having fields and houses and farming.
The people of Daiguo immediately collapsed:
This is partly because of homesickness... Although they moved from the south to the north, they have already regarded the north as their hometown after living in the north for more than ten years.
Seeing these sketches naturally brought back memories, and I felt like returning home.
On the other hand, everyone knows that there is no hope for Daiguo, and they should return to the Northland no matter what angle they consider.
So before the war even started, the same situation happened in Dai State as in Chu State: the people began to lose their people.
There is a Confucian saying that goes, "Those who win the hearts of the people will win the world; those who lose the hearts of the people will lose the world."
If the time comes when the people want to escape secretly and need to be watched and controlled, the country will not be far from destruction.
This was of course Shen Bing's doing.
Although the method used was the same as that used to deal with the Chu State, why not use it when we had a propaganda weapon like paper?
Then the Northland welcomed people returning home one after another.
Shen Bing was also generous, not rejecting anyone who came, and dividing the land according to population and even preparing seeds.
At this time, there are only a few people who have returned to their hometowns. If Yan Dai is destroyed one day, it is conceivable that more people will return to the city.
At that time, Yunzhong County will need to encircle more land to develop into Jiuyuan County.
But as the saying goes, “Everything is difficult at the beginning.”
When we usher in the climax of returning home, there must be a "contradiction between man and land".
That is to say, there are too many people returning home and the land has been divided.
What will happen to the extra people then?
Should we let them join the army to take back the land from the Huns?
Or let them wait hungry for the Liang Army to grab land?
None of this is realistic. Development comes step by step and takes time.
But these are not problems for Shen Bing, because he is in need of labor.
Shen Bing encircled another piece of land along the river east of Yunzhong County, also five miles away.
The garrison in this area is relatively small, with only more than 200 people in each city.
On the one hand, this is due to the lack of troops, and on the other hand, the supply route of Yunzhong County is to the south. It is always patrolled and guarded by the Daliang Army, so the possibility of being attacked is smaller.
This area is different from the farming area to the north. Shen Bing plans to turn it into an industrial area, that is, an area for iron smelting, iron making, and weaving.
This was planned early in the morning:
Industrial areas are suitable to be built downstream of rivers.
The reason is that industrial water may pollute water sources, such as iron smelting, iron making, paper making, etc.
If the industrial zone is upstream, the river water will flow down into the city, directly polluting the city's domestic water.
In addition, industrial areas are also suitable to be built on the tangent or downwind of prevailing winds.
Iron smelting will emit waste gas, as well as coal burning, etc. It will definitely not be allowed to be blown into the city by the wind.
Yunzhong County belongs to the monsoon zone. The northwest wind prevails in summer and the southeast wind prevails in winter. This is perfectly offset from the west-oriented Yunzhong County.
This is what Shen Bing planned:
Since there will be more people and less land at the beginning, why can't these extra people be directly transformed into workers?
When the West was industrializing in modern times, the "land enclosure movement" was also carried out in order to drive farmers off the land and become workers.